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Published on Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Your Kids Spend Less Time Outdoors Than Prisoners Do

[WHAT?!]

Your Kids Spend Less Time Outdoors Than Prisoners Do

Gone are the days when children would wait anxiously on the bell to ring so they’d go out to play. Nowadays, it’s sad how prisoners at a maximum security facility in the U.S. get to spend more time outdoor daily, whereas 1 in 2 kids all over the world spends less than an hour outside. Every day, inmates are guaranteed two hours of outdoor time. Recently, a survey was conducted on 12,000 parents with children aged five to 12 in 10 different countries. It showed that one-third of kids spend less than 30 minutes outside in a day.

A new short film showed how significant it is for inmates to spend some time outdoors on a daily basis. On the other hand, the news of children spending less time outside compared to inmates came as a surprise to parents and everyone. The inmates residing in Wabash Valley Correctional Institute, a maximum security facility in Indiana, narrate how the daily outdoors time is possibly the most important part of their day. They view it as an opportunity to vent out all their frustration and problems, and just leave them out there. It keeps their mind right and their bodies strong.

The filmmaker asked how they would feel if their yard time was to be cut down to just 1 hour per day and the inmates reaction to the suggestion was horror. One of the guards reported that it would build more anger in the inmates and that it would be a form of torture for them “Potentially disastrous,” was her remark.

Clearly, the inmates were in shock and disbelief when they learnt that children are offered less time outdoors than they.  One inmate commented, “Wow! That’s really depressing.”

The first survey was overseen by laundry brands OMO and Persil. After realizing how serious the situation is for children, they set in motion a new fresh campaign called “Dirt is Good -Free the Children.” The campaign was started in the U.K. and is headed by Sir Ken Robinson, who is renowned for his work in the creativity and innovation in education sector, and Dr. Stuart Brown, head of the National Institute of Play. Parents are allowed to share their views on the importance of play and sign up the school their child attends to Outdoor Classroom Day.

The survey that was conducted was just a testament of what we’ve been hearing from various sources that kids nowadays would prefer spending most of their time in the house watching TV and playing video games as opposed to taking part in free play outside and utilizing their imaginations while getting dirty. It’s about time people start thinking of outdoor time as a right of possession for children and not something that is restricted to those parents who have the time, resources, and disposition to take them out.

It is important for schools and governments get involved and ensure it happens. It's sad how it takes a comparison to prison inmates to make us come to the realization how little access children all over the world have to nature. As one Wabash security guard quoted, “If you don’t have to throw the kids in the bathtub, they haven’t played hard enough.”

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Author: Vrountas

Categories: Blogs, Green Living

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